Bangladesh the People’S Republic of Bangladesh, Commonly Known As Bangladesh, Became Independent in 1972
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Bangladesh The People’s Republic of Bangladesh, commonly known as Bangladesh, became independent in 1972. It is a unitary parliamentary republic in South Asia, home to roughly 166 million people in 2018 (World Bank; CIA). Bangladesh lies within the delta formed by the Ganges and Brahmaputra Rivers, primarily bordering India and the Bay of Bengal, with its southeastern region bordering Myanmar (CIA). The country currently has four tiers – divisions (bibhag), districts (zila), sub- districts (upazila, formerly called thana), and city corporations/ municipalities (pourashava)/union councils (parishad). Hierarchically city corporations are at the same level as subdistricts. There is also a special region, the Chittagong Hill Tracts, composed of three districts with special autonomy. Bangladesh or Bengal was ruled by the Mughal Empire for much of the early modern period. It became part of British India in the late 18th Century, and it remained under British control until 1947 when India and Pakistan gained independence. Bengal was partitioned in West Bengal, which was predominantly Hindu and which joined India, and Muslim East Bengal, which became part of Pakistan despite its geographical separation from West Pakistan by hundreds of miles of Indian territory. From the early days relations between the two parts were fraught. While they share the same religion, they speak a different language: the dominant language is Bengali in East Bengal and Urdu in West Pakistan. In East Bengal’s first provincial in 1954, the nationalist United Front won a majority on a 21-point linguistic and autonomist platform. When riots broke out in Dhaka, the federal government imposed martial law. This kicked off a long period of unrest marked by shifting coalitions both in East Bengal and at the center and interspersed with episodes of martial law. In 1955, East Bengal was renamed East Pakistan against the wish of most East Bengalis. In 1956, the Pakistani federal parliament met a longstanding Bengali demand by adopting Bangla as a state language alongside Urdu, but this was too little to appease Bengali demands for greater autonomy (Mookherjee 2009: 51). The 1970 elections produced a stalemate: the Pakistan People’s Party won an absolute majority in West Pakistan and the nationalist Awami League, successor of the United Front, did the same in East Pakistan. Neither party obtained seats in the other part of the country. Talks about an all-Pakistan constitution failed, and on March 25, 1971, the Pakistani army began a crackdown in East Pakistan. The Awami League declared independence on March 26. West Pakistan began a brutal military campaign that would lead to the death of 300,000 to 500,000 Bengalis and mass rape as a weapon of subjugation. India joined the war in early December and two weeks later Pakistan surrendered (December 16, 1971). Bangladesh’s independence was recognized by a majority of the United Nations in 1972 (Henderson and Miller 2001: 16-17). 1972 is the year when our coding begins. Throughout its short independent history, Bangladesh has experienced several military coups (1975, 1982) or attempted coups, martial law (1975-1979 under Zia, 1982-86 under Ershad) and long periods of military rule interspersed with spells of civilian government. Since 1990 civilians have mostly prevailed though successive governments have often flouted constitutional principles and violated human and political rights. Each regime has sought to put its own stamp on subnational governance, and this has produced fluid subnational landscape with the various tiers alternating as the most favored level. 1 Self-Rule Institutional Depth Bangladesh has eight divisions, each named after the largest city in the region. Dhaka is the largest division, with a population of almost 50 million, while Barishal, with a population of eight million, is the smallest. Below these eight divisions exist 64 districts. Three of these districts are combined in a special region, the Chittagong Hill Tracts. Below the district level, government is organized differently for urban, suburban, and rural areas. In urban areas, twelve city corporations comprise the tier below districts, and these are subdivided in wards; they constitute a form of metropolitan government. In suburban and rural areas, sub-districts (492) act as a tier between the district and local government. Suburban sub- districts are further divided into 327 municipalities (pourashava) each of which comprises several wards. Rural sub-districts are divided in over 4,500 union councils, or parishad, each of which comprises several villages (Islam 2015, p. 66; Wikipedia; Statoids). Prior to 1982, an administrative unit called a subdivision existed as a tier between districts and subdistricts (Schroeder 1985: 1135). We code three tiers of intermediate government (i.e. divisions, districts, sub-districts). We code the special autonomous region of the Chittagong Hill Tracts at the same level as divisions, and we code metropolitan government (i.e. 12 city corporations) on the same tier as subdistricts. The figure below visualizes the jurisdictional architecture in Bangladesh anno 2018 (source: Wikipedia). The constitution of Bangladesh was ratified in November 1972 and entered into force the following month. From April 1971 – when the provisional government was created – until the constitution became effective, the Proclamation of Bangladeshi Independence served as the 2 country’s constitution. The current constitution has been amended sixteen times. As of 2016, five of these amendments have been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court (Firozee 2014).1 In 1972, all existing regional and local government bodies – remnants of the East Pakistan era of Basic Democracies – were abolished through presidential decree (Hulme and Siddiquee 1999: 22), but essentially reestablished the structure with different names for the lower tiers (Part 9). Like before, only the lowest level had direct elections, but contrary to the Pakistani system, national parties were allowed to compete. Divisions (bibhag). At the time of independence, Bangladesh had only four divisions – Chittagong, Dhaka, Khulna, and Rajshahi. In 1993, Barisal was added, followed by Sylhet in 1995. More recently, the Rangpur and Mymensingh divisions were created, in 2010 and 2015, respectively.2 Three more divisions have been proposed but had not yet been set up at the time of writing (May 2020).3 The organization of the upper-most tier of divisions has changed little. Divisions have neither elected nor appointed legislatures. They are led by Divisional Commissioners, senior bureaucrats in the Bangladesh Civil Service and appointed by the central government (Schroeder 1985: 1135). The Divisional Commissioner’s primary responsibility is to review and approve programs implemented by the districts. Divisions are deconcentrated government. Divisions (bibhag) score 1 on institutional depth and 0 on policy scope for 1972-2018. Districts (zila), subdistricts (thana/upazila), unions. In contrast to the relative stability of the highest tier, the next two tiers have been reorganized multiple times since the 1972 presidential decree. Many reorganizations were politically motivated and they tended to mirror regime change. In the immediate aftermath of Bangladesh’s secession, a three-tiered system was introduced with districts, subdistricts, and unions. This essentially followed the system that existed during the East Bengal (Siddiqui 2000: 18). These tiers were all designed to be decentralized and representative, but the only elections planned and held were for the lowest tier of the union council, renamed as the union panchayet (Nasrin 2013: 39). These elections took place in 1973 (Sarker 2003: 531). Districts (zila) were deconcentrated: they were under the command of line officers from government ministries, who supervised service delivery to rural areas (Schroeder 1985: 1135).4 The subdistrict (thana), renamed into thana development committee, was also primarily deconcentrated, but had some representative government. A government-appointed circle officer presided over a committee that included representatives from the union parishad (Panday 2011: 215). Under the system inherited from Pakistan, districts (zila) and sub-districts (thana/upazila)’s chief role was to coordinate lower-level governments (Ahmed 1988: 814; Ahmed 1988: 814; Zafarullah 1996: 48: Sarker 2003: 531; Ahmed 1988: 815). 1 http://en.prothomalo.com/bangladesh/news/103661/16th-amendment-illegal-HC 2 https://www.thedailystar.net/backpage/mymensingh-become-division-143359 3 https://www.thedailystar.net/3-more-divisions-in-the-making-61866 4 Prior to 1982, districts were further divided in subdivisions headed by a subdivisional officer accountable to the division Commissioner. However, this administration appears to have been minimal; what was relevant was merged into the district administration in 1982 (Schroeder 1985: 1135; Hulme and Siddiquee 1999: 22). 3 A military coup in August 1975 ushered in fifteen years of quasi-authoritarian rule under General Ziaur Rahman (also known as Zia) (Henderson and Miller 2001: 18-22; Azizuddin 2011: 51). Zia’s efforts focused on the lowest tier of government, the “gram sarkar,” or self-reliant village government (Ahmed 1988, p. 816; Zafarullah 1996: 48; Siddiqui 2000: 18). Districts and subdistricts stayed mostly the same. Again, only union councils could hold direct elections. Centrally-appointed officials ran the district councils but subdistrict councils (Thana Development